


to love (asra)

by Magepaw



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Asra (The Arcana) Route, Bittersweet, Blood, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Disturbing Themes, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Baggage, Falling In Love, Hopeful Ending, Lowercase, Multi, POV Multiple, Vague Spoilers, everyone talks about death because i said so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-16 00:30:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21027296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magepaw/pseuds/Magepaw
Summary: everyone in the arcanagame is at least a little bit in love with asra and the trail of broken hearts he leaves in his wake. here are snippets of muriel, julian, and apprentice, and how it goes when it's their turn.





	to love (asra)

**Author's Note:**

> uhhh i don't often post stuff formatted like this mostly bc i don't know how to tag it?? stream of consciousness?? ramblings of a sleep deprived madman?? anyway it's three people in love with asra at different times in his life and the very different views they have of him bc of this...... 
> 
> muriel (pre-route), 3rd person for distance  
julian (during asra's route), 1st person he's all me me me  
apprentice (endgame), 2nd person for obvious reasons

* * *

**muriel.  
**

night casts its blanket of stillness over the forest

and through his sleepless vigil, watching moonlight creep slow and silver along the walls of the hut

muriel decides

somewhere between the crackle from the fireplace, the pungent scent of herbs hanging from rafters,

and the bed that feels vast and cold and empty,

that asra can be cruel.

or it is simply that he is too tame a creature, muriel corrects,

beaten and broken and vulnerable

so asra's edges cut too deep without meaning to

peeling back layers of unprotected skin with just a careless word

exposing tender flesh and nerve and bone with just the twist of his dazzling smile

brighter than sea glass but just as sharp

and as brutal as the scars carved along his ribcage, the shades of those who sought to claim his heart and failed.

it beats too fast now, remembering the one who tamed it all those years ago

two boys by the docks living the only way they knew how.

muriel was clumsy and young

sea salt burning his nostrils, sunlight on the water blinding him

and it felt like drowning, the ache in his lungs as he stopped breathing

the first time he fell in love with asra.

muriel hated it.

there was no fair argument this time and asra knew it.

his mind was already made up anyway –

_stubborn, reckless, ambitious, beautiful _

– and what could someone like muriel say to keep him?

it's never been fair, what asra does to him with just a glance, or

a touch

and his words have no power over asra, not the way asra has power over him.

they never did. 

to ask asra to stay with him now would be impossible, unforgivable

ripping the pinions from a songbird that aches for the sky 

asra, mercurial, adventurous, magician, the dreamer who needed open air to fly as much as to breathe

and muriel, the stone around his neck, always dragging him back to the dirt.

perhaps it is fine.

this is all there is for someone like him.

muriel was never meant for the sea, for the sunlight, for the open sky

to hold things that are fragile in his ruined hands.

all he has now is the calm of the forest, dark and deep, to ground him

the coarseness of inanna's fur beneath his fingers, and the simple routine of their survival

of waking drenched in sweat from restless, tortured dreams, shivering and sobbing like a child

before remembering where he really is

not where he was

not who he was.

and if asra wants to return to him, someday

with a soft smile, a soft touch

or to slash muriel to ribbons with sharp eyes and sharper tongue

prise apart the cage of his ribs, and use his deft fingers to pluck his still-beating heart into the open air

and finally claim what was his

muriel wouldn't stop him.

so muriel waits

as he always has

patient, faithful, hopeless, pathetic 

silent and unchanging as stone

loving asra from a distance, as he always will.

* * *

**julian. **

it was never meant to be me. julian devorak is no one's happy ending, after all.

such a devilishly handsome rogue is meant for ill-fated trysts, for rebounds and drama and jealousy worthy of the stage, for drunken mistakes after one too many salty bitters, but never is he meant to be "the one".

and only a fool would want otherwise, and you were surely more clever than me, because you knew well enough not to commit, didn't you?

it never meant anything to you, oh great and powerful magician, wise beyond his years. i was but a placeholder, a cheap replacement, a plaything you dropped once you got bored. and you were too good for me.

i knew it, but unfortunately, so did you.

we mixed like rum and fire, all heat and explosion and smoldering wreckage, but oh, my dear, we did have fun committing arson, didn't we?

down on my knees in the backroom of your shop, desperate for anything you'd give me, bitter or sweet, pleasure or pain

my blood first on your knife, then on your lips, the salt of copper wet on your tongue

your teeth in my skin, your voice in my ear, your fist around my neck

and that cold look of disgust in your eyes as you gutted me, over and over

as we both tore into each other's bodies to forget the horror and guilt and grief of the world

the waters ran red and so did we.

i could never get enough of you.

did you even miss me when we were apart?

or was there another name you longed to say, each time you whispered _ilya_?

do you remember, asra?

once i made the mistake of saying i loved you

– the audacity! how dare this knave, this scoundrel, this absolute buffoon, utter such blasphemy against the great magician asra –

and you threw me back in the gutter where you found me

because that was against the rules of whatever this was

but i just begged you for more, always crawling back on my hands and knees

liquor souring my breath, tears wet on my cheeks, nothing left to lose

because even if i wasn't good enough to love you, i couldn't bear to lose you, either.

was it pity that made you take me back each time?

was it pity every night you stroked my hair and held my hand until i could fall asleep, free from nightmares?

was it pity when you gave me the key to your place, and told me i'd always be safe there, no matter what happened between us?

the whims of fate are surely as cruel as they are kind, to push us together in our darkest hour

to not be alone

to hurt and be hurt in such exquisite measure.

we were never meant to be forever, you and i. you wouldn't allow it.

all the world's a stage, dear asra, and all the men and women merely players. perhaps it was never my place

to know the difference between pity and love and life and death

and whatever it was we used to be.

* * *

**apprentice.**

you breathe him in, and your world falls back into place.

asra smells of his travels, of campfire smoke and unfamiliar herbs, of the fantastic and faraway places he told you about when you slipped into his dreams night after night, too stubborn to sleep without him.

you _feel_

the gentle rhythm of his heartbeat, your heartbeat, the cadence that winds your bodies in sync

soft and steady with the rise and fall of his breathing.

there are no words needed between you

not when the dull, tired ache of separation in your bones has melted away, leaving you brimming with light.

you are always connected now, the ebb and flow in the emotions between you like the moon swaying the tide

and it is impossible to resist the gravity of him.

asra's shining rainbow aura, his brilliant presence, his overflowing adoration and hope and devotion

your senses are honed to him, your soul vibrating in tune, singing out the joyful harmony to his melody

or is this simply the weight of the bond you've grown over your years together? every atom, every molecule of this good life you've painstakingly built over the ashes of tragedy

makes it harder to imagine what it was before

_before_

when you were two souls adrift, crossing each other's orbits, but never allowed to touch. 

you feel everything so much _more _

when asra is in your arms, solid and real and unable to deny you

and it's tempting to lock the door and stay like this forever

falling into each other's sway, lost in the edges of where asra's consciousness bleeds into your own.

there are endless realms to slip into, all at the touch of your fingertips, without your bodies moving from this spot

your mind conjures the brilliant pools of the oasis, the sparkling desert sands, the swirls of color and the heady rush of oncoming rain on the horizon

and the tingling rush of magic that dances playfully from his touch and sweeps through your body leaves you feeling giddy, almost lightheaded

but asra holds you steady as always

and it's just the two of you suspended in this moment.

your feet are not on sand. they are planted firm on the floor of your shop

and dear faust, of course, is winding happy circles around your ankles

and none of you ever have to part again.

asra was the first sight you ever saw

and when he called your name for the first time, shaky with disbelief

you think that was when some budding part of you, new and fragile,

started to love him

when your life began.

you would be happy to die in this moment, now, with his face the last thing you saw

before you returned to the ashes he pulled you from.

for now asra is all yours, and he is here,

and he rests so easily in the circle of your arms, because that is where he has always belonged

cheek pressed to the warm skin of your chest

soothed by the music of your still-beating heart.

**Author's Note:**

> i like all three of them with asra so much and i want poly endgame but also [asriel hecked me up good](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17615615)


End file.
